No sign of Brown in Brussels

From European Voice's Entre-Nous column

8/29/07, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/23/14, 8:42 PM CET

The photogallery on the website of European Commission President José Manuel Barroso provides a happy record of the president’s meetings with the great and good of the world: Wayne Rooney, Bono, Axelle Red and so on. But one happy smiling face is thus far missing: that of the not-so-new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, rushed to Brussels to make an early public appearance with Barroso. Even Jarosław Kaczyn´ski, Poland’s prime minister, came to Brussels within two months of taking office. But as yet there is no sign of Brown making a prime ministerial trip to Brussels, or inviting Barroso to London. Brown has had a meeting with Sarkozy and two with Merkel – and seen US President George W. Bush – but a meeting with the Commission president might be more problematic when the Eurosceptic press and even some trade unions are calling for a referendum on the EU’s reform treaty.

There is something splendidly parochial about the state-aid investigation launched last week by the European Commission’s competition department into JC Decaux, a French advertising company. The question …